Commercial Real Estate Brokerage – 6 Ways to Establish Client Care Programs

In commercial real estate brokerage there are a lot of things that you can do and information that you can provide for your clients to help them tap into the trends of the local property market.   Buying, selling and leasing commercial real estate can be seasonal based on supply and demand as well as local business cycles.  

Your VIP clients and prospects can get that extra special service from you to keep them up to date with sales and leasing trends for a property precinct or type of property.

So what would you watch?

There are plenty of things that you can watch for your clients to help them in understanding the trends of the property market in your town or city.  An informed client will be inclined to stick with you as the specialist local property agent or broker.  Over time the relationships that you establish with these VIP customers from an ‘informational base’ can be very fruitful.

Consider these questions:

• Can you tell a client how the property market has shifted over time?
• Can you graph the sale prices and rental levels for your property type?
• Can you show a client graphically the peaks and troughs of the selling and leasing cycles in each year?

Establish a ‘Client Care’ program that specialises in commercial real estate activity.  Gather the facts of local property activity and make that information your point of difference in marketing and client contact.

Why do it?

Actual information about local property activity can help you condition a client to the prevailing market conditions.  In every listing pitch that visual information will be of great benefit.

Start your client care program this way

Here are some topics and ideas to feed into your ‘client care’ program:

• Quarterly industry briefings – You can run a simple industry briefing in your office for high value clients and customers to attend. Get some guest speakers to add to the presenters.  In those briefings you can talk about factors of supply and demand as well as prices and rents.
• PDF newsletters sent by email – Each month you can send a pdf newsletter out to your database or segments of your database to advise about recent sales and leasing activity. Every successful sale or lease is an opportunity for an article, case study, or editorial.
• Social media articles – Feed all your city or town based property updates into your social media channels. By referring to ‘property updates’ I am meaning those local property market facts that are interesting and informative.  I am not referring to listings.
• Pre-release property inspections – Give your high value clients and prospects the chance to know about and inspect new listings that have just come onto the market. Those early inspections can occur when you have listed the property and before you have publically advertised the property.
• Annual tenant retention plans – Help your clients maintain reasonable rent and income controls from an annual assessment of tenant stability and retention. You can do that assessment for all your top clients, with their high quality buildings.  Invariably the leasing work that you create from that assessment can be commissions that may not otherwise have come to you.
• Monthly updates of new property developments in your location – Look for the new property developments coming up. You can do that at the local planning and approvals office.  A new property development, and particularly the larger ones, can shift property supply and demand.  Ultimately that can mean a shift in rent and prices.

So there are plenty of things that you can do in helping your clients move ahead in commercial real estate.  Get closer to your clients so you can be there when they need you.